


your hand touching mine

by susiecarter



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Extended Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 09:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8280895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Five times Alfred and Diana were (technically) not on a date, and one time they finally were.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



> Please forgive errors, handwaving, and research fail; and enjoy some incredibly oblique and understated pining. ♥ Your prompts for this ship were lovely, linndechir—I only wish I could have written you something with a little more "burn" in its slow burn!

 

 

**one: because patching bruce up together is _never_ a date.**

Master Wayne sometimes likes to claim that he works best alone.

Needless to say, it has never been an accurate assessment. Alfred has refrained from contradicting Master Wayne to his face on that particular point, however; it isn't a productive line of argument. Alfred knows how to choose his battles. More carefully than Master Wayne, at times.

But whatever Master Wayne thinks, Alfred is well aware that it is always, always preferable for Batman to have backup in the field. And never is that more apparent than on nights like this.

"Sir," Alfred says into the radio for the third time, and for the third time nothing but static answers him. Either their channel is being comprehensively jammed, or yet another of Master Wayne's radios has bitten the dust.

The Batwing's feeds aren't providing any helpful information. The standard camera is blinding at the moment, nothing but a wash of flame; the infrared is equally useless, for exactly the same reason. The terrain scanner and its accompanying 3D projection map are struggling to account for the still-settling rubble. Perhaps in two or three minutes, Alfred will be able to force a meaningful contribution out of them, but for the moment? Nothing.

He presses a hand flat against the cool clear pane of the desk. If perhaps his fingertips are white with pressure, well. There's no one here to see.

As Master Wayne is somewhere in the middle of all that fire.

"Sir," Alfred says again, very even.

And surely there will be no reply. Except the speaker crackles, once and then twice more in quick succession; and a smooth low voice says, "I have him."

Alfred closes his eyes. "W," he says. _Miss Prince_ had nearly made it out first, but of course that would be a discourtesy over comms that might be compromised. "A pleasure, as always."

His tone is wry, but he finds as he says it that the sentiment is sincere. Alfred hasn't had much opportunity to acquaint himself with Miss Prince directly, but Wonder Woman has been a boon to him anyway. Alfred couldn't be more familiar with Master Wayne's moods and habits if they were his own. And given that baseline, it is with full knowledge of the weight of the words that Alfred has found himself thinking Master Wayne has been deeply troubled since the day of Superman's death.

Alfred does his best to provide what steadying influence he can, as always. But he's hobbled by certain limitations. There are patterns that govern his interactions with Master Wayne, and have for years; he's discovered, with a sort of resignation that makes him feel very old, that it's stranglingly difficult to break free of them. And at the end of the day, he simply hadn't been there. Wonder Woman had: Batman had stood at her shoulder, had fought beside her, had lowered Superman's body into her waiting arms. That formed a connection that even Master Wayne has proven unable to dismiss or diminish.

Even if she hadn't continued to show up in Batman's periphery, Alfred would be grateful.

And she _has_ continued to show up. Batman hasn't been sharing information with her on a regular basis; Alfred would know if he had. But whenever Batman calls enough attention to himself to draw a rush of tweets, a blurry snapshot, a news helicopter or two, Wonder Woman has a tendency to arrive on the scene shortly afterward. She does what she can, always has Batman's back, and never, ever makes him ask; and she may not understand the true extent of the kindness she's extending by it, but Alfred certainly does.

"Likewise," Miss Prince says, and she sounds like she might be smiling. "It looks like he reached the second device in time. I'll bring him to you, if ..."

She trails off delicately, managing to sound matter-of-fact about it instead of leading. Alfred pauses; but it's more out of a sense that Master Wayne would prefer a demonstration of caution than out of caution itself.

And then he permits himself to reach for the Batwing's remote controls. "Of course. Your guide is above you, W. I freely assume you'll have no trouble following."

"None at all," Miss Prince confirms, warm.

Alfred provides the Batwing with a course, and then steps away to begin gathering the medical supplies Master Wayne will undoubtedly require.

*

By the time Miss Prince arrives, everything is prepared. Master Wayne is unconscious; but the damage doesn't appear to be too severe. So it's all right for Alfred to indulge in a moment's amusement at the picture he makes: a shadowy pietà, draped dramatically in Miss Prince's armored grip.

"A girder landed on him," Miss Prince explains.

"Of course it did," Alfred murmurs.

He had liked hearing Miss Prince's smile well enough. But it's lovelier still in person, sweet and slow and a little wicked before she flattens it away. "It's likely he has fractures," she adds, serious again. "And he is bleeding; I believe parts of the suit's interior shell have cracked, and they are what has cut him. I couldn't find any evidence of shrapnel."

Master Wayne won't be pleased to hear that. Though depending on the girder's velocity, the impact could very well have exceeded what they'd designed the patrol suit to withstand. And of course the heat may have been a factor; Master Wayne will no doubt insist on tests.

"In that case," Alfred tells Miss Prince, "this shouldn't take long."

*

It doesn't.

Especially with Miss Prince's help: she carries Master Wayne into the Cave at Alfred's direction, but once he's safely been set down, she doesn't leave. She helps Alfred extract Master Wayne as carefully as possible from the damaged suit. She passes him more thread, a butterfly bandage, gauze, as he works, and at least twice she does it before he can even ask.

He'd apologize for the imposition, treating Wonder Woman like an infirmary assistant, except that she doesn't seem to think it is one: there's no impatience in her face, no hint of resentment or frustration in those clear dark eyes. She stays there with him until he sets down the last trimmed-off span of gauze and sighs, and only then does she say, "He'll be all right?"

"Oh, yes," Alfred says, "yes, he'll be fine. Not to worry, Miss Prince." He remains where he is for a moment, scrubbing a hand across his forehead; and then all at once he remembers himself. "Beg pardon, I don't know where my head is. If you would like to clean up ..."

She smiles at him, and then looks down consideringly at her hands and arms, smudged with soot and with Master Wayne's blood everywhere her gauntlets don't cover. "Yes," she says, "I suppose the concierge might notice this."

There's no particular emphasis on it, but Alfred's attention catches on the word anyway. He blinks. "Miss Prince, forgive an old man his curiosity: are you by any chance still staying in a hotel?"

He's aware that her original stay in Metropolis was intended to be temporary. But then Superman had died, and she had remained, and it's been weeks.

"For the moment," Miss Prince admits.

"Good lord," Alfred says, and hopes his expression says the rest for him. "Please allow me to invite you to stay here instead, at least until you've made other arrangements."

Miss Prince glances eloquently down at Master Wayne's still form.

"Master Wayne would agree with me, I'm sure," Alfred says, and doesn't say that even if Master Wayne didn't, the invitation would not be rescinded.

But Miss Prince, perhaps, hears it anyway. "I'm sure he would," she murmurs, with the barest hint of that lovely smile. "And I'd be delighted to accept."

"Wonderful," Alfred says, and is already considering where the nearest set of clean sheets might be.

 

**two: because it's not a date if it wasn't planned in advance.**

"It's not here," Master Wayne says over the radio, tense, low. "We only have an hour before the Wayne Enterprises tour of this facility is over. If I can't locate the drive by then—"

"I am aware of the stakes, sir." Alfred keeps his tone mild: a counterbalance. Master Wayne has always needed one, and Alfred will therefore always provide it. "If I may: perhaps another pair of eyes?"

"Two pairs," Miss Prince adds, raising her voice enough for Master Wayne to hear.

Master Wayne had not approved of Miss Prince's presence in the lake house, at first. But it was a pleasure to confirm that he also hadn't been raised so poorly as to accept her polite offer to return to her prior accommodations. And after that, defeat, and thereby acceptance, had only been a matter of time.

They have progressed to the point where Miss Prince, in civilian clothes, can stand in the Cave with Alfred and speak to Master Wayne across Batman's channel. And Master Wayne can know it, and not insist that she be ejected and the lake house self-destructed to cover their tracks. Truly, Alfred thinks, the world is full of miracles.

"You have no cover."

"If security discovers us rifling through the basement laboratories," Alfred says, very dry, "I suspect even the best-supported deceit could not save us."

Master Wayne sighs sharply through his nose. "One of the civilian cars," he says. "Don't draw more attention to yourselves than you have to."

"Yes, sir," Alfred says.

*

It's impossible to miss the look that blazes across Miss Prince's face when Alfred brings the car around. Not the Aston Martin; a Rolls Royce instead, demure silver.

It wouldn't have suited their current purposes in the least, but, looking at Miss Prince, Alfred allows himself a foolish moment to wish it had been red.

"Lovely, Mr. Pennyworth," she says, stepping toward it.

"Alfred," he tells her; and it's worth contradicting her so rudely when she smiles at him like that for it.

"Alfred," Miss Prince repeats, and then looks away again. "I love cars," she confesses, running a hand along the gleaming curve of the Rolls's body. "Ones like these, especially. It makes me think of riding horses."

Alfred blinks. The image that springs to mind is the kind of riding he's seen in places where Bruce Wayne goes, and that bears very little resemblance to the roar of an extremely expensive car. But then he supposes that isn't the sort of riding Miss Prince means. Amazons ride horses into battle.

"The skill, I mean," Miss Prince is saying. "Having to know what you're doing, and learning the feel for just when to do it, the precision to make yourself part of all that power." She shakes her head, smiles again, and then steps toward the rear of the car. To go around it, Alfred thinks, to the passenger side.

"No," he finds himself saying, "please," and he opens the driver's door and gets out.

Miss Prince pauses, eyebrows raised.

"Please," Alfred repeats, and gestures with a hand toward the driver's seat.

*

They're halfway to the facility Bruce Wayne was invited to tour when Alfred's earpiece clicks awake. They'd be further along, but Miss Prince has been following Master Wayne's instructions, staying a perfectly average four miles over the speed limit.

"Master Wayne?"

"It's here," Master Wayne murmurs. "I got lucky; there have to be two dozen more labs down here."

"Congratulations, sir," Alfred says, and then turns the comm off again. Standard procedure, to go dark once the objective's been obtained. Master Wayne will only radio again if there's trouble.

"He got it," Miss Prince says.

"He did," Alfred agrees.

Miss Prince's expression is calm, as always; a little satisfied, perhaps, pleased for Master Wayne's success. There's no reason in particular why Alfred should find himself looking at her and hesitating.

But he does.

She flips a turn signal on.

"No rush," he says.

She glances at him.

He shrugs a shoulder. "Master Wayne still has to finish his tour. There wouldn't be any harm in our ... taking a drive, Miss Prince."

She glances at him again, and then away; and then, with a flick of the wrist, the turn signal goes dark. "Diana," she tells him, and then the Rolls springs forward under them with a growl.

 

**three: because it's not a date if it's being used as a distraction.**

The opera is lovely. It's a shame none of them are getting much of a chance to listen to it.

A shame, but not a surprise. Master Wayne only goes to things like the opera on business. And tonight is absolutely a business night in the Wayne family's box.

Alfred can at least admire the costuming, the staging: in order to present a façade of normalcy, should anyone happen to glance this way, he and Miss Prince are attentively looking in the correct direction. But their focus is almost entirely on Batman, who managed not only to find the LexCorp board member they had known would be here tonight, but to drag him here and push him to the floor.

The man's now being interrogated by Batman's steady quiet growl; and to preserve the illusion that all this is happening in the Wayne box by sheer coincidence, Alfred and Miss Prince are the Bat's hostages likewise. Master Wayne had not wanted to risk an actual civilian making any rash decisions.

"Oh, god, please, I don't know—"

Alfred is close enough to feel Miss Prince go tense, and for a moment he wants to tell her it's not the way it sounds, however unlike Wonder Woman's preferred methods it might be. Fear is Master Wayne's tool of choice, not pain.

But then she touches the back of Alfred's hand with two fingers; and almost at the same moment, the vague shadow of her foot presses forward, against the dark bulk of what Alfred guesses is Master Wayne's knee.

"Ssh," Batman hisses to the man on the floor.

The man obediently falls silent, and a moment later, below them on the stage, the soprano concludes a long crescendoing sequence of measures. In the sudden perfect hush, Alfred can hear what Wonder Woman's ears had caught: footsteps, coming up the carpeted walkway toward the upper boxes.

Alfred knows what Master Wayne will want. But for the sake of the LexCorp man on the floor, he has to wait until Batman's pressed something sharp to the side of his leg and said, "Keep whoever that is outside of this box."

"But," Alfred dutifully protests, allowing his voice to quaver.

"Do it," Batman insists, and that must be enough to satisfy even Master Wayne. Alfred _is_ supposed to be afraid for his life, after all.

There are a limited number of things one can be doing in an opera box that should not be interrupted. If Alfred is permitting himself a liberty, it is a liberty demanded by the circumstances. He leans over much too far, and he has enough time left to say, "I do apologize for this, Miss Prince."

He doesn't take Miss Prince by surprise; he imagines very few things do. She holds still in her seat, legs gracefully crossed, and is evidently as conscious of the potential danger to Master Wayne as he is. When he carefully settles a hand as close to her knee as he can get it without compromising their pretense, she puts one of hers over it.

He doesn't kiss her. Of course the thought occurs to him; he lets himself acknowledge it, feeling a wry resigned quirk catching at the corner of his mouth in the dark, and then he sets it very carefully aside. That would not qualify as a liberty but as an unkindness, and unkindness is the last thing he wishes to deal out toward Miss Prince.

He only angles himself close, the hinge of his spectacles nearly brushing her temple; he only eases his free arm over the backs of their seats so he can skim the tips of his fingers across the delicate nape of her neck, just where her hair is swept up into the twist that holds it out of her face—

"Excuse me, I—oh!"

Alfred disengages from Miss Prince ever so slightly, with an audibly frustrated sigh, and glances over the backs of their seats at the usher. "Yes?" he enunciates, as pointedly as possible.

"I'm so sorry," the usher says quickly, as low as she can when the soprano has taken off again. "I'm afraid I have to ask. Have you been interrupted?"

"Yes," Alfred says, very dry. "By you. Right now."

Miss Prince glances sideways and gently clears her throat.

"Of course," the usher says. "Of course—so sorry," and she backs away from the curtain that closes off the rear of the box and lets it fall back into place.

Someone has noticed Mr. Board Member's absence, then, and has raised enough of a fuss to force the opera house's staff into action. But not enough to halt the performance, or to require a proper search. Master Wayne still has a little time.

"Not bad," Batman growls at his poor hapless hostage. Alfred manages not to roll his eyes.

And then Batman returns to his night's work; and Alfred discovers, with a brief guilty lurch, that while he'd withdrawn one hand in turning toward the usher, he's left the other where it was on Miss Prince's knee.

"I must apologize again, Miss Prince," he says, grimacing at his own idiocy. But Miss Prince's hand is still over his when he carefully lifts it away, and before he can get far, she stops him.

"You were a perfect gentleman, Alfred, as always," she says, low and warm and, Alfred dares to think, perhaps a little fond. "And I thought I told you to call me Diana."

It can hardly be called meeting her eyes, in this dimness. Her face is nothing but a faintly paler slice of shadow; the subtle amused curve of her mouth, her patient gaze, the smiling lines around her eyes, are all utterly lost.

It doesn't matter. Alfred can picture them perfectly anyway.

"Diana," he concedes, and feels any chance he might have had of escaping this intact sigh through his hands like smoke.

 

**four: because it's not a date if it's just breakfast.**

Old habits die hard.

And this, perhaps, is one of Alfred's oldest: on nights when Master Wayne has close calls, Alfred doesn't sleep.

Nights when Master Wayne is actually injured, well. There are things that need doing, and Alfred is more often than not the only one left to do them. He can bear that well enough. And nights when patrol is quiet pose no particular difficulty.

But nights when Master Wayne is at the precipice, when for even the briefest instant Alfred cannot know which way the scales will tip ... Those are the ones that linger after he's set down his earpiece, after the Cave is quiet and Master Wayne safely returned. Those are the ones that do not let Alfred go.

He even understands why. If there's one thing all his years have earned him, it's self-knowledge: a part of him is still trapped in that moment of balance. A part of him still has the comm pressed against his ear, and is waiting, waiting, waiting, to hear it. Not a curse, or a cry, or the distinctive snap of cracking bone. Those all mean the first kind of night. It's a silence that Alfred is waiting for, a particular terrible silence; and when he's set down his earpiece, when the Cave is quiet and Master Wayne is tucked away upstairs, it feels almost like it's arrived.

But it hasn't. Of course it hasn't.

Not tonight, at least.

He shakes his head at himself. "Downright morbid in your old age," he murmurs to his reflection in the gleaming sink; and then he sighs and rolls his shoulders and gets out the teapot.

*

It's already five o'clock in the morning. It hadn't been hard to tell what sort of night it would be, but he'd gotten into bed anyway, out of hope or well-worn routine or both. And it had been comfortable there, warm. Clean sheets were a pleasure Alfred never underestimated.

But by about half four, comfort hadn't been enough to keep him there. In this, he and Master Wayne are the same: the line between relaxation and boredom is thin and easily crossed.

Tea helps. The tea itself, hot and strong and made precisely the way Alfred likes it; and the making of it, the quiet familiar steps.

He's pouring a mug and humming tunelessly to himself when Diana steps into the kitchen, and for a moment he simply thinks she's risen early. He glances up and smiles, because he has resigned himself to the fact that seeing her will make him want to. "That is the fluffiest robe I've ever seen."

Diana grins at him and smooths a hand over the folded collar of what is, in fact, an extremely fluffy robe. "I'm going to take that as a compliment," she murmurs.

He sets the teapot down with a thunk, and that, of all things, is what makes it occur to him. "Oh, good lord. Did I wake you?" He's used to Master Wayne, who sleeps lightly but can be relied upon to be unable to hear a teakettle sing from the opposite end of the house. The same can't be said of Diana.

But, gracious as always, she waves his apologetic tone away. "No, no, I could've gone back to sleep," she says. "But I heard the kettle, and—" She shrugs and smiles again. "Tea tastes better when you make it."

And he is a very foolish old man, he thinks, to let that warm him the way it does.

"Everything tastes better when you make it," Diana elaborates.

"Well, in that case," Alfred murmurs, and gets out a second mug.

*

He makes buttered toast, thick golden slices, and decides there may as well be options: cinnamon sugar, jam, marmalade. Diana has shown signs of having a bit of a sweet tooth.

The tea and the breakfast tray come out of the kitchen, but not to the table. "It's a beautiful morning," Diana says, drawing Alfred over toward the huge glass panes that look out onto the lake. And that's where they eat: on the floor, a cushion or two discreetly borrowed from the couch, with the fog rising from the water like the steam from their mugs, pale with the very first light of the sun.

 

**five: because it's not a date if it's a lie.**

Alfred doesn't watch Diana dance.

He is serving as her escort this evening; but he'd decided already that Alfred Braithwaite was not a jealous man. The young fellow who'd asked Diana onto the floor had no idea who it was he was dancing with, and wouldn't be driving her home at the end of the evening. Or proceeding down into the Cave with her afterward, so they might both exchange observations with Master Wayne regarding the security measures in place in this particular building, and decide together how to proceed.

Master Wayne would have drawn too many eyes. But Alfred is sufficiently faceless in his usual public role as Master Wayne's butler that there is very little danger he will be recognized in person by anyone at this event. And Diana Prince has carefully refrained from making much of a splash in Metropolis society. They are here together, as friends and as colleagues in this effort, and by now they know and trust each other in a way that that young man will never know or trust either one of them. It doesn't make Alfred angry, to see him with an arm around Diana's waist. It can't.

It only makes Alfred a little ... wistful, perhaps. Sad, in a sweet light way he almost treasures.

But he should be concentrating on the mission instead.

So he doesn't watch Diana dance.

*

When the music concludes—a relatively fast waltz, if Alfred is any judge—he does allow himself to look.

The young man doesn't step away immediately, but rather leads Diana off the dance floor. She allows it; but Alfred sees, with something that's not quite a pang, the amusement tucked away in the corners of her mouth. She's told him that Man's World still baffles her sometimes: as if she couldn't find her own way around!

She looks ahead, catches Alfred's gaze and smiles. Three women in lovely formal gowns cut between, for a moment, and then she's only a few steps away; except the young man catches her elbow.

It's deliberate, Alfred thinks. He's glanced ahead toward Alfred, too, and knows how near they are, well within earshot. His body language is deliberate, too, angled as he is wholly toward Diana; Alfred not invited to participate in the conversation, and yet evidently intended to overhear its contents.

"You're wasted on him, you know," the young man is saying. "A woman like you—it's a waste."

He's about to say something else, except he cuts himself off when Diana steps away from him. Her expression has barely changed, the humor still there in the quirk of an eyebrow; and what washes over her face after a moment isn't irritation, or frustration, or disdain.

It's sympathy. Sympathy, and compassion, and perhaps the barest tinge of regret.

"You're wasting yourself," she says.

The young man blinks. "Excuse me?"

"You're wasting yourself," Diana courteously repeats, as though he might simply not have heard. "I was like you, once, when I was very young. You're clever, and strong, and a good dancer. But you do not think, and you are not kind. _That_ is a waste."

She takes another step away, close enough now to hold out a hand to Alfred and for him to take it. He's expecting her to keep walking, perhaps to take them around the room to count exits, under the guise of getting herself a drink after that waltz.

But she only takes one more step. She's laced their fingers together, her palm warm against the heel of Alfred's hand, and then she leans in and brushes a quiet kiss onto Alfred's cheek.

For a moment, he almost can't catch up: he's caught on the strange sad look that flickered across her face as she moved toward him. Sad, and sweet, and light, just like the feeling it had given Alfred to think about dancing with her; the feeling of thinking about a thing you wanted but didn't expect to get, and of helplessly wanting it anyway.

But he's not so slow as to let her pull away. "Diana," he murmurs, and meets her eyes, reaches up with his free hand to skim the backs of his fingers against her cheek.

And the world _is_ full of miracles: she lets him.

Lets him, face unreadable; and then she smiles, slow and brilliant, like the rising sun spilling light across the lake.

"I don't suppose," Alfred says, very low, "that you'd care for another waltz?"

"I would be delighted," Diana tells him, and laughs.

 

**plus one.**

"What's all this?"

Alfred glances up from the table, where he's just set down a fourth platter.

"I thought Bruce was out on business," Diana adds.

"Oh, he is," Alfred agrees, and then, with mock formality, "That doesn't mean I leave his houseguests to fend for themselves, Miss Prince."

Diana grins at him. "Of course not," she agrees, tone solemn; and then she actually looks at the table.

"It's all very approximate," Alfred says, and he can't help sounding aggrieved. Culinary complexity apparently isn't something Ancient Greece had much indulged in; the dishes are all fairly simple, bread and cheese and honey, mashed vegetables, olives, fish, quail eggs. The most difficult thing to track down had probably been the eel, and advice as to what might be substituted for garum. "Unfortunately, availing myself of the best available source of information would also have ruined the surprise."

"It looks delicious," Diana assures him, with a smile.

A smile that, he fancies, dims just a little when she sees the single plate.

"In that case, I hope the taste matches the appearance," he says over his shoulder, as though he hasn't noticed. "I also took the liberty of selecting a wine. I'm given to understand that is essential."

He comes back out of the kitchen with the wine; Diana has already seated herself, and she smiles at him again as he pours it and thanks him warmly.

"And now I shall take another liberty," he tells her, "if you will permit it," and sets the plate he carried the wine bottle in on down on the other side of the table.

She looks at it, and then at him. "Nothing would make me happier," she murmurs, low, and at the look in her eyes when she says it, Alfred allows himself to believe it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> your hand  
> touching mine.  
> this is how  
> galaxies  
> collide.  
>   
> —Sanober Khan


End file.
